


The Forlorn Watchman

by nostalgic_breton_girl



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Bravil, Gen, the forlorn watchman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24554233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgic_breton_girl/pseuds/nostalgic_breton_girl
Summary: In which I am tempted to Bawnwatch Camp, at eight o'clock, by a certain rumour frequenting Bravil.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Close Encounter

By day, Niben Bay is alive, crowded with white sails and whiter gulls, people, Divines! on the shores, in boats, looking out from the cliffs... They say in Bravil that Niben Bay is like the sea, and even I, who come from Anvil, cannot deny that it has some of the atmosphere, that it attracts the eye and the tourists, that it is vast and beautiful, if not quite so vast or half as beautiful as the Abecean, – that is, by day, Niben Bay is quite the spectacle, but I on this fourth visit to Bravil was by then quite used to it. It was a shock, then, to go by night, and find it entirely changed... the smooth still waters, reflecting cold moonlight over bright warm sunlight, absent of birds, of life, and yet more compelling and beautiful than ever, - oh! if ever there was a night to encounter the supernatural, it was that one –

– standing on the cliffs, and so entirely captivated by the sight, that I was startled from reverie by the distant chime of the chapel clock – and Bravil was invisible in the night, but the eighth hour reverberated across the bay; I started, and came to myself, and when I saw reality, I saw that there was indeed a figure, on the edge of the hill, and he was ethereal.

Never before had I seen the spirits that haunted our world; I had heard only stories and theories. It is one thing to learn about something in cold plain academia – quite another to shudder, as the wind drops; to shudder, on sensing that one is not alone; to shudder, in the true realisation of a legendary fiction. I had thought I should be scared. Perhaps I was, a little, in the sudden breaking of the solitude; perhaps my hand went to my staff, and my mind to the fundaments of destruction. But they hung there, in silence; and at last relented; for the spirit had not moved, and now looked upon me with all the desperation of a man lost.

To greet him seemed polite, and so I bowed, though I did not take my eyes from him.

He did not return the greeting, nor did he make any sort of gesture. I could not help myself, I stepped forwards, and made a study of him, assuming he did not in fact see me, that his eyes looked out on another time, another night.

But as my own eyes swept over his faded self, his approximate form, his curiously certain visage, our studies coincided, and I knew he was fully present in my reality.

And he spoke, he bade me ‘Please...’

A desperate voice...

‘Sir,’ said I: ‘I want only to assist you, if that is what you wish; if you seek your liberty.’

I do not know if, in the darkness, I had but imagined his perception of me, for though I believed his eyes to respond, he said nothing, and even before I had finished speaking, he had turned, and begun his walking vigil of the clifftop. My intention had been to follow, as if I should be able to break the silence that so many others had not; I began to doubt myself, I thought I had imagined his recognition, overstated my own heroism. He would go onwards, to Fort Irony, and there disappear, and I should return to Bravil with the same story as everyone else.

Did I believe that? –

Not for long, not on that night. – If ever there was a night to encounter the extraordinary, it was that one.

I followed him, as if I were the spirit, my footsteps light and insignificant along his timeless path. His walk was brisk, his destination predetermined. Whether it were a path he had walked in life or forged in death was unclear. I scarcely took note of its course: I walked it in imagination, and with his gently luminous figure ever within my sights.

I do not know for how long I walked...

Save that, when in the moonlight there appeared the silhouette of the fort, I was drenched by rain I had not perceived falling.

Masser was full in the eastern sky, and so bright that the Watchman had nearly faded: but I had followed him, and saw his outline, and hurried to catch up. He went a little further, his steps slowed, he halted: halted, in the same place as the stories told.

There were conflicts in the reports: some said that the man stood for hours, with his hand upon his brow, and his eyes upon the bay; others said he disappeared, and could not be seen, until the ritual began again the following night. He did not do anything, for a good few moments; I waited for his arm to rise, or for him to leave me alone upon the cliff: but then he turned, and looked straight at me, and I wondered if I was dreaming, when he addressed me thus:

‘I was once the man known as Grantham Blakeley... Look for me, in the mouth of the panther.’

His voice made me shudder, I could not say quite why, until I recognised the change in his demeanour even from earlier, until I recognised that the daily haunting had become a flesh-and-blood man, a man of the past, trapped in this present ethereal form... that this was not a ghost but a messenger, that he spoke to me, not as the repeating spectacle of some long-gone presence, but as a man communicating.

Then, pleading:

‘Please... release me...’

‘Oh!’ said I: ‘how might I –’

‘Release me...’ he said, and his voice tailed, and he turned away once more.

When I hurried to him – when I extended my hands, in some mismatched gesture of alliance – he no longer saw me: his hand had gone to his brow, his eyes to the shadowy horizon, or to some unattainable point beyond. In a moment he had become a spectre once more, in a moment he was returned to the figure of hearsay. I made to speak again, but I knew he would not hear, and that he would not reply. My presence had broken his cycle, briefly; now he was trapped within it once more.

I considered the two names – the man, and the place – for a good few minutes, and my stance unconsciously mirrored that of my ghost. I was entranced once again, by the smooth waters of the bay; entranced, by the near-silence that encompassed this land, this valley; there had been rain, but it faded, and nothing ruffled the damp air, for so long... I might have been a ghost myself, I had drifted –

I had drifted, and so had my mind, and for a fragment of a second, I heard a voice, and the wind, I heard water, crashing; I heard the bell of a ship, and the crack of wood; and then Grantham Blakeley stood before me, alive –

Then I started – started, because I had surely been dreaming, had almost fallen asleep where I stood. The sounds dissipated, and my vision returned reality to my erring mind. I turned, looked at the spectre; his demeanour was entirely unruffled.

I drew in a breath, to steady myself, and decided I had better return: to discover the meaning of the names, and more importantly to put myself to bed. – To Bravil, then.

To Bravil, to civilisation. It had been a most peculiar evening. – Oh! and I scarcely knew how long I had been out, until I tore myself away from my own post, and began, with no small effort, to return through the long damp grass.

I had scarcely gone a few steps, when I heard, faintly, the church-bells on the horizon, striking... I tried to discern them, thought I counted ten. And on the tenth, I meant to say some farewell to my forlorn watchman; but when I turned, he was gone. He was gone; and down at the lakeside, I heard some bird shuffle in its nest; an owl, over the field; and the spell was broken.


	2. The Emma May

It was bedraggled and quite baffled that I returned to Bravil, and to the Mages’ Guild, which at that preposterously late hour was quite silent. My last waking moments were preoccupied with what had happened; my dreams, with bizarre half-conclusions, and that name – Grantham Blakeley – as persistent as the ghost had been; and when I awoke I was not convinced that any of it were reality.

But I too was persistent, and so returned to the inn, where Gilgondorin noted from my straggling hair that I had been out in the rain: it was no large step to guess where I had been, the previous evening.

‘What of the ghost?’ said he – ‘did you see it?’

I relayed the adventure, and most especially the ghost’s parting words, which Gilgondorin dwelt upon for a moment.

‘I don’t recognise the name of the man,’ he said at last: ‘but the Mouth of the Panther – any sailor worth his salt knows that. It’s what they call the delta where the Panther meets Niben Bay. Its name comes from the pointed rocks which jut out of the water there.’

Some more to-ing, and fro-ing, and I decided that that should be, as per the instructions of my undead friend, my foremost destination.

Any journey across Niben Bay is made surprisingly easy by the frequent boat-services, combined with the fact of being a mage. I studied a map, and asked for the omnibus-timetable for the boat to Leyawiin, and scarcely any time later was aboard and headed for the aforementioned Mouth of the Panther. By day – I have said – Niben Bay is alive: it is a wonder that any omnibus might forge a path, through the scores of pleasure-crafts, and the swarming birds. – The cheap traveller regrets their ticket, when they are plagued by gulls, and stared at by those passengers who chose an inside seat.

I was the only mage-disembarkment before the Panther. To those who may not have witnessed a mage-disembarkment – to those who have, and been perfectly baffled – I will say that this increasingly common occurrence is the departure of an alteration-mage, in the middle of a body of water, that they may then employ some spell of water-walking and travel in whatever direction they so please. It is something I have been known to use, on Rumare, but which always gives one damp shoes, despite one’s best efforts.

And so I arrived, with damp shoes, and yet assailed by seagulls, upon the opposite shore.

It was with a small dismay that I beheld the landscape about me: the Nibenay Valley is verdant, to be sure, but I had not quite expected it to be such an indelicate tangle. Even where the land met the water, the greenery sprawled almost to the edge, and over the sands: a reminder that one was not far from where our familiar countryside met Blackwood chaos, and at length the swamps of Black Marsh... I have not often been in that direction, and have most frequently seen the lands from the safety and relative distance of Leyawiin.

It must be said that I had not come especially prepared, and it was with the shaft of my poor beleaguered staff that I cast the vegetation aside, all the while hoping that my travelling-cloak would be protection enough. I had however seen from the boat the rocks which Gilgondorin had mentioned: and I greeted them, soon enough, on walking a little up the delta.

Great towering pillars among smaller ones in the ripples, and these so sharp that the place well merited its title. A panther-mouth indeed! certainly it seemed as if it might be treacherous, and especially if a ship were to... a ship.

There was among the grasses and the muddy banks the form of some vessel: and as I neared it, I saw that it was a shipwreck, and overgrown with plants, little more than an extension of the undergrowth.

_Look for me in the mouth of the panther..._

Grantham Blakeley had had the wind-brushed features and the dress of a sailor: and with the appearance of this wreck, I might piece together what it was that had happened. He had been wrecked, certainly – killed, surely – and was now trapped within – by what means or force, I was not entirely sure.

And if that were true, and I was to release him –

It usually falls to Corinne, or else Tara, to remind me not to do dangerous or recklessly heroic things alone: and in the absence of either, I resolved to go into the wreck, and find my poor acquaintance, and free him by whatever means necessary.

Go into the wreck: that was the first quandary.

I deliberated for a good while, over the branches and the ivy, and the soft sands beneath which looked as if they might disappear in a breath; then I pulled myself onto a branch, pattered along it, and flung myself onto the deck of the ship, all the while begging the Divines that I would not fall through a floorboard. I did not, and so was satisfied.

It did creak beneath my feet, however, and a little beyond what I might have wanted. Well! that was to be expected from a craft that had been there – I know it now to be half a year, and estimated then rather more than that, in the romantic idea that I had chanced upon something quite lost to the ravages of time. Certainly the ship was lost to the forest and the river, and its sails had already faded into the flora.

I thought I should have to unlock the door by magic, but it opened unprompted. Beyond was the captain’s cabin, riddled with cobwebs, the smell of damp, and scraps upon the floor which I did not particularly want to identify. I cast myself a light, and had a look around.

There was upon the table, among scattered silverware, and an illegible map, a log-book. This had been bound in leather, and had not quite mouldered into the desk, and I could not help but open it, find out what this ship was – and what might await me within.

The _Emma May_ had been a cargo-vessel, a back-and-forth operation between the cities of Cyrodiil, and the ports of Elsweyr and Black Marsh. Simplicity itself, if you are a sailor: save that the crew had done what storybook crews do, and planned a mutiny against the captain, this apparently because the latter had gone headfirst into a storm rather than sit it out. 

I remembered a particularly bad storm which had afflicted the City several months ago (and which I now know to be the very storm), one of the last winter storms, which had whipped Rumare into a frenzy, and cast waves halfway up City Isle; which had lingered so close about the lake, that anyone outside would have lost themselves in a mire of fog and damp; and which had rampaged its way southwards, all the while unleashing its fury on the unsuspecting Niben, and creating a monster of it. – Pity the sailors who will face such a storm, I had said: pity the sailors who will have to race the storm to land. – These sailors had raced it, and not made it.

I wondered if it justified a mutiny: surely at such an hour, it is unity that will win one the day...

It was not until the final entry, as I ran my eyes quickly over the pages, that I saw the name Blakeley. He had supported the captain, and been cast below with him, while the others had taken the ship, and whether by accident or design run it aground.

Then it was below, in the hold, that I would find him.

I had stood straight, and was about to turn, when I felt a presence at my back, and was most impolitely greeted by a spectre.

‘Oh!’ cried I, and made to address it, as I had the ghost of the previous day: but this was no full spirit, this was a mere shadow of a presence. The cold reaching arms and the twisted face of a long-gone man; beyond that, nothing, save some unreasonable fury that it then proceeded to take out on me.

The first blast, or spell, or whatever it had produced, was one I did not know, and which filled me with an intense sensation of cold and dread – such dread as might, in its full quantity, discourage one from even trying to fight back. – But I am a Breton, and a master-wizard and that, and so I stood tall before the spirit, remembered my lessons and sent a fireball as retaliation.

The thing screeched, horribly, recoiled –

It had scarcely launched its second attack when I loosed my own, and the eruption of flame which engulfed it more than countered the shuddering cold that ran through me. I thought it had entirely dissipated, until in the gloom I perceived a shimmering mass on the floor; this I dipped a finger in, sniffed it, determined it to be fresh ectoplasm.

I am an alchemist above all else: I took a small jar from my bag, scooped in some of the ectoplasm, and at length made to continue.

The sense of dread which the ghost had emanated, was not limited to the spirit: it increased as I ventured beyond this cabin, and opened the trapdoor down. Here was a place which had seen death and devastation; here was a place more desolate than the previous night had been...

A place that was haunted simply by the memory of what had happened; a place from which spirits could not move on, before the air was calmed and righted. Would I right it, by destroying them? I did not know what else I could do.

My task was to navigate through the wreck, and find and free Grantham Blakeley: everything else was incidental.

There were more ghosts on the next deck: more screeching faded remnants of people, diminished, perhaps, by their crimes, and through them tied to this world. In setting them alight, I determined that I was either releasing them – to whatever paradise or torment awaited – or utterly eradicating them – in which case they would not care. – And if nothing else, they were out for my own life, and I had not the time for theology, only for self-defence.

I had gone at the last ghost of the deck, when I had a thought, and called out:

‘Where is Grantham Blakeley?’

The spectre hesitated an instant – an instant which I might have imagined – before redoubling its attack: but I was sure I heard, between screeches, a shuffling from downstairs, some kind of response.

This ghost dispatched, I lowered myself through the final hatch.

This deck was darker and colder still, and so utterly filled with despair that I almost turned and left before I could but think on it. There were freezing fingers clutching at my very heart, a blackness swelling before my mind, and it was all I could do to dispel it, to reason with this haunting that went beyond the feasible. Oh! what malicious force was keeping Grantham Blakeley here?...

The most malicious of the spirits then made its appearance, and caught me quite off-guard, before I had but raised a hand in defence. This was not one of the airy faded things which I had before met: it had more form, half a face, even, etched upon the shadow... And in what I presumed to be its hand, it had a sword, a very real one.

‘Oh!’ cried I – stumbled backwards in panic – quite without conscious thought enshrouded myself in a Dragonskin. And hoping I might dispatch it before it swung its weapon, I cast a ball of fire towards it; watched the flames catch at its form, it screeched horridly –

A sudden inferno, that I near spent myself of destructive force: a cacophony of screeches, such that I believed it perceived pain just as a mortal, and felt a sharp pang of remorse; but it meant to attack me, perchance to kill me, and it was in my rights to destroy it, which I duly did.

The flames billowed to the ceiling; the ghost went up in smoke; the sword fell to the floor, a clatter which clashed entirely with the unreality of it all; and then, silence.

Silence, and the overwhelming sense that I had cast away the cobwebs...

Only the creaking of the boat, wind whistling in a crevice, and, far off and muted, a seagull over the lake.

I had dissipated the evil force at work: perhaps the man who had led the mutiny, perhaps he who had thrown Grantham Blakeley below, as I had read in the journal. His crime had not been over: and indeed, I still did not feel quite comfortable, there was yet something which I must do, to fulfil the wishes of my poor spirit. _Release me_ , he had said: I had got rid of his captor, but he was yet imprisoned.

And so I went on ahead, through the deck, and into the final cabin.

I shall not forget what it was that I saw: the skeletal corpse of a man, shackled, half in shadow, to a post; skeletal, despite the short time passed, for he had no doubt been a fine provision for whatever creatures of the water and the riverbank should have ventured in here, such that there was scarce anything yet holding him upright; I did not have to investigate, I knew that this was Grantham Blakeley. My task, then, was to release him.

Release him – for his physical captivity, and some dark intent from the spirits which had remained on board, had kept him here, long beyond what he ought; oh! and what a horrid eternity it would have been –

I was not even conscious of the smell, or the darkness, or the heady air all about; I hurried to him, cast myself a light, and then cast a spell on the shackles, to break them apart. At my touch, they glistened, gave out, shattered; fell with a crash upon the floor. And with them fell the mortal remains of Grantham Blakeley – not in chaos, as I had feared; I did not even need to touch them; they were as if sleeping upon the deck.

‘You are free,’ said I aloud...

And even as I spoke the words, my light was diminished beside an appearing presence, the same spirit which I had seen upon the cliffs. He rose from his body, and bowed before me, and there was upon his face the most intense gratitude, a gratitude which defied the paleness of his features.

‘You are free,’ said I again: ‘Arkay bless you, my friend.’

I had thought he would go; rather, he looked upon me still, and reaching down indicated an amulet which was on the floor. I presumed that it had been about his neck; and from his gestures, I determined that he wanted me to have it.

And so I took it; and looking up saw that he had turned; even as I watched, he walked away, and disappeared, granted freedom at last.

What value we should put on such freedom! –

‘Fare you well,’ said I, into the curiously decreasing darkness; and my heart was lifted, as turning the amulet over in my hands I extricated myself from the ship, and emerged blinking in the daylight.


	3. Angelie Blakeley

Gilgondorin had not known the name _Grantham Blakeley_ : but when I returned to the Imperial City, by guild-guide, and asked there, I was eventually told that a family by that name had a house in the Talos Plaza, and that I might do well to seek them out there.

I do not know what drew me to finding what kin he might have had, save that the amulet weighed a little heavy in my bag, it did not belong to me. And the shipwreck had been recent, and the vessel had sailed from the City –

I found the place at length, knocked upon the door, did not know what to say or what welcome I might find.

The house was occupied by a single woman – I might have said at least half Redguard – who looked at me in surprise, not knowing me, but at my request invited me in, sat me down at her kitchen table.

‘Your name is Blakeley?’ said I.

‘Yes. Angelie Blakeley.’

‘Did you... are you a relative of Grantham Blakeley?’

The name shook her more than I had expected, and falling into the chair opposite she said:

‘He... he is my father.’

Her father! – I must be tactful... I leant over, gently took her hand (which she did not resist), and even before I had spoken she said:

‘I know he is gone.’

Silence, save the settling of the floorboards; like the creaking of the ship; the wind at the keyhole; I was back upon the cliffs, and Angelie was lost for a moment in reverie. Her expression and demeanour however were so bizarre that I could not help but invite her to continue a thought.

‘I saw him...’ she began, faltered. ‘I saw him, last night. Just... a spirit, I thought it were a dream, he bade me farewell. I felt... settled.’

Then, quite forgetting that she was opening her heart to a perfect stranger:

‘He was lost at sea, many months ago. I knew he could not have survived; I did not believe he could have perished. I... I have lived these months in quiet turbulence. But something, last night –’

She did not weep, her eyes were calm, she smiled at me, sadly, and slipped her hand from underneath mine.

‘I am forgetting my manners. I imagine you are here to tell me what precisely became of him.’

‘I suppose I am...’ 

It was the most peculiar narration of my existence, but once I had embarked upon it, I determined not to stop, and not to hold back anything of it. She had every right to know; I had a duty to honesty, no matter how strange or how heart-wrenching the truth. And she watched me, listened intently, did not speak until it were all over, a good half-hour. I was most conscious of the fact that I spoke of her father, and that her father had quite evidently been beloved, and a good man; I could not counter that, I had heard tell of his loyalty, and had been swayed to his side, that curious night.

When I had finished, she sat back, and there was nought but gratitude upon her face, as there had been upon that of her father’s spirit: I saw him, then, saw his gracious innocent smile in hers.

‘Oh!’ said I at last, and pulled the amulet from my bag: ‘and this was his, I believe; he offered it to me; I believe it should be in your hands.’

She took the amulet, looked upon it, recognised it...

‘A simple thing,’ she said: ‘he had had it enchanted to fortify endurance. He endured rather more than he ought, do you not think?’

She became pensive more even than before; held the thing up, saw it glisten in the light; its reflexion shone in her eyes.

‘I think you should have it,’ said she: ‘you have done more for my family than I can say.’

She returned it, folded my fingers over it before I could protest otherwise. I was quite startled, and could only stammer out a thanks, before placing it about my neck; then with a silent mutual consent, we embraced each other.

I could sense her sorrow and her relief and her gratitude all in a confusion; my mind was also in turmoil, but I might rest easy knowing she was as happy as she might be, that I had brought her comfort. Oh! – the poor woman, what she must have known, in these many months!

At last we broke apart; she still composed, but only just; and once again, profusely, she thanked me, for what I had done for her, for her father. And it was thinking on her words, and the amulet, and our most bizarre sightings, that I left the house; and knowing that, as long as I should live, I should never be so affected again, by an affair so perfectly unusual as this...

* * *

_Divines bless you, Angelie, Grantham, Divines bless you for ever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this scene is invented, the daughter is not: she may be found in the Talos Plaza district. Her brief narration of her father's disappearance mentions that it was years ago, a fact which I altered for this story.


End file.
